First Bike and First Build

In May of 2011, I bought my first bike a 2005 Triumph Thruxton in Caspian Blue. This was after much deliberation on wanting an older bike because of the style and wanting a newer bike because of the reliability. All the while trying to get enough performance that I would keep the motorbike long term, but not so much that I would hurt myself.

After searching Craigslist for a while, I found a low mileage (<4k miles), very clean example. The only “mods” to the bike were a Staintune slip on exhaust and the carbs rejetted. The seller delivered it to my garage from the eastern shore and the next day I started using it to commute from my home to my garage.

The day I bought the bike

First ride

Pretty quickly, I started buying stuff for it. First came the FEK, then came a new set of wheels. That was all in the first several months. Then that winter, I found a beat up 2006 Triumph Daytona 675 that I purchased to use the front end for a swap. At the time, I wanted to keep the bike all Triumph parts. Something along the lines of what the factory could have built. Pure-Triumph featured it as their April Bike of the Month in 2012.

I rode it for the summer and decided I needed better braking and more power. Then off came the stock Daytona brakes, they were too soft. After some minor machining, on went a set of Yamaha R6 monobloc calipers and a Brembo mastercylinder. I just about tossed myself over the handlebars the first time I hit the brakes.

A local guy is a bit of a guru with these twins. He has a 1087cc Bonneville thats pumping out over 100 WHP. He helped me install some TPUSA cams and tune the FCR carbs. Also at this time, the wiring harness was trimmed down to bare essentials so I could rid the bike of the side covers and give it a bit of a cleaner look. Bonnefication featured it on their blog, though calling it a Thuxtona.

Naturally, I rode this thing like I stole. It was miles better than stock. One day when i was back to tuning the bike. I went ripping on it around the corner and the motor and bike locked up in 2nd gear at 8k RPM. I had to push it the mile home. Desperate for a new motor, a gentleman out in California had a TPUSA built 988cc motor. It received a black paint job, swapped over the right jets and needles and the bike was ready to go again.